The quest for antidepressant treatment response biomarkers: identifying the potential candidates

• Grant number: 23/14968-9
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2024
• End date: July 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Chemistry of Macromolecules
• Principal Investigator: Daniel Martins-de-Souza
• Grantee: Daniel Martins-de-Souza
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Fernanda Crunfli ; Johann Steiner ; Tatiana Andrea Benaglia Carvalho

Abstract

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) stands as a significant contributor to worldwide disability, impacting approximately 20% of people at some point in their lives. MDD is a complex condition characterized by a diverse array of symptoms and its current treatment is mostly pharmacological. The limited response of MDD patients to antidepressants is the main clinical issue for medication adherence, which significantly adds to the gravity and clinical impact of MDD. The biggest existing challenge for clinicians is to determine the most suitable treatment for each patient. This utmost needed clinical question, added to our experience with proteomics and metabolomics led us to propose the present project, which aims at pinpointing distinctive blood plasma molecular signatures composed by proteins and metabolites in a cohort of MDD patients, in order to predict their response to antidepressant treatment over a 6-week duration. For that, we will employ mass spectrometry-based proteomics and metabolomics and will also develop computational models to integrate protein and metabolite signatures. Some of the pivotal dysregulated proteins and metabolites will be also tested using in vitro neural models in order to depict the biological processes associated with good or poor medication response. It is important to highlight that the current study is only the first step in the quest for biomarkers to depression. We will continue down this road once the first part proposed here is completed. Nevertheless, as it stands, the present project has the potential to lay the foundation for the creation of new, objective clinical assessments that may come to assist psychiatrists in enhancing MDD management by offering data for predicting and monitoring patient responses to antidepressant therapies. (AU)